Modular Smart Phones – Technology To Rock Your World

It’s a dream come true for every kid who owned a Lego set growing up. The idea of a “modular” phone. Thank Google for it when it hits the market, and make no mistake, it very definitely will. You can put “Project Ara” down as yet another of the whole spate of transformational technologies that are heading our direction.

Individually, any one of these stands to completely redefine not only the business landscape, but our social DNA as well. Taken together, you can expect that they’ll shake the foundations of the planet. You might think I’m overstating, but I’m not. If anything, that’s a profound understatement. It’s doubtful that we’ll even recognize the world we’re living in twenty years hence.

In brief, in case you’ve managed to miss it, the list of our transformational technologies are these:

1) Emotiv’s EPOC technology that allows you to control computers and other electronic devices with your mind. Yes, this is already being sold. You can buy one right now for around $300.

2) 3D Printers – the ability to print literally thousands of products from mundane to high tech in a space no bigger than your garage.

3) Flexible circuits (also called “digital tattoos”) that allow circuitry to be bent and folded such as to allow for smaller and smaller components.

5) The growing “Internet of Objects” which basically allows anything to talk to anything.

You start putting those pieces together, and you end up with a world that’s almost completely unbound by the rules as we understand them today. All that to say that Project Ara is a pretty important tech, and here are five things you’re going to love about it:

1) It’s Legos, but “For Real”

What’s better than Legos? Legos for grown ups that actually “do stuff” in the real world, and that’s what the modular cell phone offers up.

2) Swappable Components

Does your phone’s camera have too few Megapixels for your liking? Swap it out. Need a display screen with a higher resolution? Swap it out too. Need more memory? You get the idea.

3) Perfect Customization

Based on the above, the notion of swappable components means that you can create your own perfect phone. What you find most important will be somewhat different than what I find most important. Given the same budget for our respective phones, we’ll probably end up with a slightly different set of features based on our choices. There will be no more “iPhone 5.” Instead, there will be a list of components. We’ll design our own technology based on a menu of choices and wind up with something unique to us and how we use it.

4) Endless Variety

What that translates to is perfect, user specific customization. It’s going to make things like “brand” a whole lot harder to define, and rather than focusing on this or that “brand,” we’ll be focusing on core functions which we find important. What a refreshing change that will be.

We might not recognize the world two decades from now, but it’s certainly going to be an exciting place to live in!